Before his election, Garfield had served as a general in the United States Army, and represented Ohio in the U.S. House of Representatives.

On July 2, 1881, Garfield was shot by Charles J. Guiteau at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, DC. Two months later on September 19, 1881, he died from his wounds. Only six months into his presidency, Garfield became the second president to be assassinated and the fourth to die in office. He also served the second shortest length of presidency in US history after William Henry Harrison.

James Garfield (1831-after 1882) was a Republican senator who represented Ohio in the United States Senate. He had been an officer in the Union Army during the War of Secession and had served on a number of courts-martial. He rose to prominence by purging the Army of defeatists after the end of the war.[1]

In 1882, Garfield was one of several prominent Republican leaders to attend a convention called by former PresidentAbraham Lincoln in Chicago. He resisted Lincoln's proposal to replace hostility toward the Confederate States with workers' rights as the central plank of the party's platform, going so far as to suggest that following Lincoln's plan would cause the Republican party to split into three factions.[2] The meeting ended with Garfield and every other delegate walking out, leaving Lincoln alone.[3]